København, jeg skal kommer tilbage til dig

There are days when I wake up and feel my heart tugging in my chest for no apparent reason. Sometimes its an anxious tug, other times its a happy, little heart dance that pulses in the back of my throat and pulls up the corners of my mouth for the rest of the day. Only recently have I started paying attention to these mysterious internal tugs, and only recently have a realized that more often than not, they're punching me in the gut for a reason. Like karma. Or something like it.

I believe that this universe is quite orderly, that there's a pattern to it all, a method to the madness. Its a cirle. Bear with me while a wax poetic, philosophical, or crazy. But there have been so many moments in the last year when I've woken with a feeling that today is an important day. And at some point in my wandering, studying, eating, crying, or laughing, a voice chimes in that says,

"Remember where you were."

And I'll remember where I was on that day, at some point in my past. My life cycles. There seems to be a funny, karmic method to my madness.

On Sunday, I picked up my journal for the first time in 3 months. This is significant because I am a writer, and I usually find myself returning to this book every 3 days. But the last 3 months have been hard on me for reasons that only the the most important people around me understand.

I returned to this book because I am going back to Copenhagen. I received an internship in my city, the city that brought me a sense of peace which I find difficult to explain to people. It was a sense of peace and purpose that I had never really encountered up until that point. I had been chewing on the offer all day long with a familiar little tug in my chest, and it tugged harder and harder as I leafed through the madness I methodically documented in the spring of 2009. The night I sat on a barstool with my silly friend Kristin and tried to make eyes with a man, any man, for two hours before we realized it was "Gay Night." Wipping around street corners in Vesterbro on my little, purple bike while the Danish rain slapped me in the face. Turkish toilets in the basement of a Bulgarian mosque. A bottle of wine in Siena and the kiss that changed the course of an evening.

On February 21, 2010, I lay in bed reading old journals and considering a return voyage. And I came across an entry from February 22, 2009; the day after I met a man. He didn't bring me peace, and the happiness he brought was fleeting. But it was walking with him, talking with him, and riding on the back of his bicycle that made me fall in love with the city of Copenhagen.

And I find it funny that EXACTLY one year after that seemingly random encounter, after an entire year of life, of books, tears, hellos, goodbyes, smiles, french papers, plane rides, family dinners, job interviews, disappointments, and celebrations...

Copenhagen is my reality once again.
I take it as a sign.
But I'm a little superstitious like that.

aujourd'hui j'aime...

Timeless, classic style via the impossible cool.

Jean Seberg


Charlotte Gainsbourg


Grace Kelly


Complimentary café signs:


photo by brian ferry at the blue hour.

This song: "Numbed" by Danish songbird Trolle Siebenhaar.



P.S. Who is the cutest?

Happy Friday

regina spektor via la blogotheque.

aujourd'hui j'aime...

Grey, hooded trench-coats on the streets of Berlin.



The satirical genius that is Unhappy Hipsters.


He couldn't stand another night with that smug hookah.



The things that once so defined him - shag carpeting, Room and Board sofas, monogomy - now suffocated him.



In search of a less bleak playground, the toddler pedaled faster.


This song: Twice by Little Dragon

how to impress a french girl

where in the world was emily?

I was searching for a little French paper inspiration this afternoon, and stumbled across some fuzzy, abbreviated slices of my 2009 wanderings. The nostalgia set in. But my writer's block was cured.

Where was I?

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

aujourd'hui j'aime...

LA BLOGOTHEQUE : A French website with links to intimate, impromptu concerts by amazing musicians. You don't have to speak French to navigate it, just type in the name of the band you seek to see if any recordings have been uploaded. This one, featuring Andrew Bird, gives me the chills right around 9:35. He plays all the parts. He is a brilliant man. And all of those lucky Parisians get to sit on the floor at his striped, socked feet and witness it first hand.




T.ruffles : A happy little blog by Karey Mackin and Mary Ruffle. Twice a day, Mary posts a photo and Karey follows it later with a charming subtitle. Comme ceci:



via wide open spaces